What Will It Be Like To Use?

[Wegg]

I don't have a Gp2x. . . I'm an avid Zodiac user so . . . keep that in mind.

What will it be like to actually USE this thing? With the Zodiac you turn it on and. . . after a little animated logo that sucker is ON. No wait. You just tap on different categories for your apps and launch what you want.

But you only get to run 1 app at a time and it is NOT stable in any way. Its always a challenge to keep the memory cleaned up but still have a lot of fun apps to play with. But its also fairly "easy". Installing apps is done with a double click and a sync. No fuss.

Obviously since Pandora isn't going to be PalmOS based, it won't boot up instantly. . . I can live with that. . . but will it be like other Linux Distro's where it takes quite a while to boot up with all the different modules being loaded up one by one? And once it is loaded up. . . will it have a Gnome or KDE environment? I know it is an open platform, so it can be anything I want it to be but what would you guys envision being the "standard" way of using it?

Will developers create a "launcher" interface that you then configure with icons pointing to the different apps like Palm? Or will there be an actual windowed interface where applications you install place themselves into their appropriate directories and program folders and you can use a "real" explorer window to move files/folders around yourself?

Can I have lots of things open at once? Like e-mail, web, mp3 player etc? Can we alt-tab between them easily?

Will there be a package manager that automatically finds all the needed dependencies like Ubuntu?

Who is working on this? The OpenPandora hardware guys?

I'll stop there. I'm REALLY geeking out over this thing. Can't stop thinking about it. :blink:

 

[Game_over]

As soon as you switch the system on, you will loose sense of perspective and transgress all that is unjust. A rainbow will shoot out of the screen and feed all the oysters on the bottom of the sea; Birds will sing to the tune of you playing with your thumbs and then silence will soon set in; but of coarse, that's not before you hear a haunting "Pata Pata Pon Pata Pon Pon Pata" echoing in the distance.

Or you could just check the site since there is no info on how the start up of the device will start up and it's not completely together just yet but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

http://www.openpandora.org

 

[squeakypants]

It will probably use either a custom environment or maybe a lightweight one (fluxbox or enlightment or others). While you could run a full environment, I doubt we'll need anything more than a window manager. I think the best solution for the devs would be to use one of those lightweight window managers, then create their own interface for launching apps and such.

Of course, if it means another few months to develop it, then just ship it with something and go! I might develop an interface myself if that happens (or if I don't like the one that comes with it). There was another thread where I was saying we should have it be widget-based.

In short, we don't know. It will support anything that has a debian ARM package. I don't know what it will ship with, but it's not that big a deal. In the months after it's released I'm sure someone (if not me) would make a nice interface.

As for your other questions:
QUOTE
Can I have lots of things open at once? Like e-mail, web, mp3 player etc? Can we alt-tab between them easily?

I'd don't see why not. Of course, I know nothing about ARM architectures, but I imagine it would run like a normal linux pc.

QUOTE
Will there be a package manager that automatically finds all the needed dependencies like Ubuntu?

Yup. I don't know if Synaptic (the app you're referring to) will be supported, but there are ARM repositories just like the x86 ones that you use in Ubuntu. There is also talk of the community making a Pandora repository and package manager that would have all the Pandora software.

QUOTE
Who is working on this? The OpenPandora hardware guys?

Who's working on what? The software? I can only guess there are programmers on the team

 

[conso]

I would guess the whole system will be a highly optimised debian-arm-based distribution. Therefor synaptic will probably work, but apt-get should be comfortable enough.
there are quite some very basic windowmanagers out there. A lot of them were already suggested, but no official information is available about that
I would personally like the sugar-interface from the olpc-project, though it might have too much dependencies (installing it on ubuntu was a mess )
wait and drink tea

 

[senquack]

Take a deep breath, sit back, relax, for I am about to paint a picture.

A grand majestic portrait of what will soon be.

Pandora.



It's a game system. You play games on it.

 

[Zarneth]

Think of it as a PC with 128mb ram and a 600mhz processor and an 800x480 screen, basic 3d card, Keyboard, Mouse, USB, speakers etc, running linux.

It should be able to do anything the above specs can do, and quite possibly more, we'll just have to wait and see exactly. The only catch that any programs, games, desktop environments you want to use will need to be ported first.

Don't listen to anyone who sais it's just for gaming. Yes that's it's primary purpose and what it will do best, but it's capable of far more than that.

 

[Game_over]

That is true, and there is alot of stuff you can do in conjunction with games to enhance the experience. Like maybe you could add a usb camera and create some AR games; and have a background widget that lets you know when you have a new email, IM, game update, achievement or whatever.


As far as the team goes:

Craigix/MWeston/ED/Fatih

 

[Sphinxter]

Obviously since Pandora isn't going to be PalmOS based, it won't boot up instantly. . . I can live with that. . . but will it be like other Linux Distro's where it takes quite a while to boot up with all the different modules being loaded up one by one?

Rummage around in the utili-linux package for simpleinit by Richard Gooch, it boots in parallel based on the needs and provides concept instead of one by one. There shouldn't be much module loading since it's an embedded system and known well in advance exactly what the hardware is, more likely to build monolithic for stability and speed, modules take time. Boot from cold power on might get down to around 10 seconds to prompt, lot depends on the hardware no one has seen yet, but the difference it can have on a pc is shocking, great fun experimenting, there aren't any boot scripts in there but you can have mine and they start like a rocket;
http://gnnix.org/base/root/dist/usr/src/gn....8/sbin/init.d/
the dynamic firewall in there copes with dhcp and needs the tables here http://gnnix.org/base/root/dist/usr/src/gn...8/etc/firewall/
and use the ipcalc here, not the bsd one
http://gnnix.org/base/root/dist/usr/src/ipcalc-1.0/
I advocate taking run change scripts out of etc/init.d and user accessible space and putting them in root country /sbin/init.d, zero-install in there too, YMMV

 

[Mr B]

It's a game system. You play games on it.
It's not a game system. You can however play games on it. A game system is optimized for gaming, and this isn't.

Think of it as a PC with 128mb ram and a 600mhz processor and an 800x480 screen, basic 3d card, Keyboard, Mouse, USB, speakers etc, running linux.
Your comparison is about as far of, as your chance of walking on the moon without a oxygen system in the next couple of days. Just comparing any PC cpu's at 600MHz is a bad strategy since performance will be different depending on what model, and brand you get your hands on. On top of that, this isn't even a x86 system, so any comparison is simply a waste of time.

This is a UMPC, period. It will do for some rather poor gaming in my opinion, due to the low priority given to the placement of the gaming controls, and it wont play arcade games with the screen standing on end. (High screen, rather then wide) Not being able to fold the screen over, makes the touchscreen a lousy replacement for a mouse touchpad, I was so looking forward to playing alot of Amiga mousebased games, Them park, The settlers, and so on, with the stylus on the screen, but this design makes that pretty much impossible. And, of course... This design makes it unnecessary thick. Needles to say, i never wanted this to be a clamshell. But hey, this is just my opinion.
B!

 

[Spearhead]

It's a game system. You play games on it.
It's not a game system. You can however play games on it. A game system is optimized for gaming, and this isn't.

Mr. Joypad, Joystick, 4-Buttons and Shoulderbuttons would like to have a word with you.

 

[fishybawb]

Mr. Joypad, Joystick, 4-Buttons and Shoulderbuttons would like to have a word with you.

No, no, it's NOT a game system! Those dual analogs, d-pad and gaming buttons are just for decoration! If I say it often enough, it MUST be true!

 

[Wegg]

It's a game system. You play games on it.

Thats how the Zodiac was marketed too. And in my opinion. . . thats why it died. People's brains think.. . "It can play those silly games but. . . can it do really HARD things like. . . a spreadsheet? Or check my stocks on the internet? I don't think so!"

The Zod is still the very best Palm based PDA you can buy for any application BECAUSE it was designed with gaming in mind. They stopped making them in 2004 and still nothing has come close! Games drive innovation in computers. None of these awesome video cards you can get for next to nothing that make my job (3D animator) so much easier would be there without games pushing the envelope.

Intel sells integrated systems that are NOT capable of playing games and those machines are my constant bane. I can't deliver a realtime 3D experience for my clients because 50% of the machines out there have these useless integrated Intel graphics chip sets in them that can't do squat. They are sold "to people who don't play games".

The Zodiac has a rumble pack, 3D acceleration, an analog joystick, shoulder buttons etc etc. . . but again. . . there is NO better all round PDA at the moment because in order to be able to play awesome games. . . you have to have power under that hood.

I think you guys need to ditch the "its just for games" mentality or this potentially awesome machine won't ever reach mass appeal.

GP2X is just for games. Sure. But why put a keyboard, high res screen or even Wi-Fi on the Pandora if it is just for gaming?

 

[Tobriand]

Wegg: Agreed. Although I have a slight suspicion that Pandora may end up a little thick to be a standard PDA, but to be a micro-laptop is another matter. Pragmatically, actually, that's important - it's got to be enough of a game system that gamers really want to play games on it, but not so much of one that it struggles to be accepted as good at other things.

In terms of boot time, Pandora is supposed to be like a PC in that it has several modes of "off". From a cold boot, I'd imagine it would take it's time to load (where that can be read speculatively as somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds, based on the time it takes a GP2x to load, which admittedly, probably isn't fair). It's also supposed to have a hibernate mode (ram saved to somewhere - presumably SD - and directly reloaded into memory on next being turned on), and a suspend mode (cpu stops, screen off, but ram maintained). And presumably low-power modes as well when it's on, not doing anything, and the case is closed. Low power and suspend would basically give you instant on because they were never really turned off.

NB that Hibernate might actually be slower to use than a cold boot if the data is saved to SD; if class 4 SDHC card are rated at 4Mb/s (which they seem to be), then that's still a good 32 seconds to fully repopulate ram, although if the hiberfile were compressed, this might be reduced.

No-one knows (except maybe the developers) what window manager it'll be using. To be fair, we don't even know for sure that it'll be running X, although it's kinda been assumed since the outset. Craigix has hinted that they'll be using the same OS as the EEE PC to begin with (because it works, mostly), although the last hints at that were a long while ago. That would be IceWM, though, I believe.

Intuitively, I doubt the team will go for KDE or Gnome, simply because whilst 800x480 is big enough for windows, trying to look at them on a screen with pixel density as high as Pandora's would be painful. I imagine it'll be a case of one window on screen at once, but a system for moving between them. Possibly with "menu" halting the current process temporarily, and bringing up an interface for switching between tasks or opening new ones. Certainly that's what I'm hoping for.

 

[Chip]

In terms of boot time, Pandora is supposed to be like a PC in that it has several modes of "off". From a cold boot, I'd imagine it would take it's time to load (where that can be read speculatively as somewhere between 10 and 30 seconds, based on the time it takes a GP2x to load, which admittedly, probably isn't fair). It's also supposed to have a hibernate mode (ram saved to somewhere - presumably SD - and directly reloaded into memory on next being turned on), and a suspend mode (cpu stops, screen off, but ram maintained). And presumably low-power modes as well when it's on, not doing anything, and the case is closed. Low power and suspend would basically give you instant on because they were never really turned off.

Craigix confirmed both suspend-to-RAM and suspend-to-disk. Since the Pandora's battery will be very large, you should be able to get several days worth of standby time in suspend-to-RAM mode. I suspect nobody will need to turn the device off very often.

 

[nubie]

Craigix confirmed both suspend-to-RAM and suspend-to-disk. Since the Pandora's battery will be very large, you should be able to get several days worth of standby time in suspend-to-RAM mode. I suspect nobody will need to turn the device off very often.

Yes, that would be a good use for the rare Mobile RAM that it uses.

I think that due to the open nature of the system we will eventually see a system that will have a graphical boot-loader, and the makers of heavy games will load the game directly from the bootloader.

And/or a lite os for browsing the web, or possibly as the main OS. (like those new ASUS mobos with Firefox in the Bios and available within 5 seconds.)

Since the hardware is standardized and the only peripherals are Wifi/USB/ and SD, boot up should be quick. We likely won't be running nearly as many services as a desktop/laptop OS anyway

 

[Zarneth]

QUOTE

Think of it as a PC with 128mb ram and a 600mhz processor and an 800x480 screen, basic 3d card, Keyboard, Mouse, USB, speakers etc, running linux.
Your comparison is about as far of, as your chance of walking on the moon without a oxygen system in the next couple of days. Just comparing any PC cpu's at 600MHz is a bad strategy since performance will be different depending on what model, and brand you get your hands on. On top of that, this isn't even a x86 system, so any comparison is simply a waste of time.

This is a UMPC, period.......It was an intentionally vague example. Because we frankly DON'T know for certain how it's going to be till it's out. Even then it'll be hard to compare. But honestly most of my emphasis was intended on pointing out all the peripherals, those peripherals giving it a lot of capability similar to a pc, particularly the capability of not being restricted to the manufacturer's OS and apps like most handhealds are to one degree or another.

On the other hand. 128mb or ram stores 128mb of data. The only thing that could vary a lot is how the cpu compares. But that will moreso affect how fast things run, not what or how much you can run.

Also UMPC stands for Ultra Mobile PC. Maybe not in architecture, but otherwise it's otherwise trying to be like a pc on a much smaller scale.

 

[Sphinxter]

Another way to speed up boot time, load everything your run change scripts need at once before they're launched instead of each one opening and reading a bunch of files. The parallel run change scripts previous read a gnxconfig template, gnxconfig creates one with the running machine configuration the first time run and then you use it to generate all of the system configuration files, switch templates and reconfigure everything or part at once.
http://gnnix.org/base/root/dist/usr/src/gn.../sbin/gnxconfig

 

[Karel Jansens]

Another way to speed up boot time, load everything your run change scripts need at once before they're launched instead of each one opening and reading a bunch of files. The parallel run change scripts previous read a gnxconfig template, gnxconfig creates one with the running machine configuration the first time run and then you use it to generate all of the system configuration files, switch templates and reconfigure everything or part at once.
http://gnnix.org/base/root/dist/usr/src/gn.../sbin/gnxconfig



Isn't that basically the Microsoft Boot Cheat?

 

[Sphinxter]

An idea worth having is an idea worth stealing. b-)

 

[Karel Jansens]

An idea worth having is an idea worth stealing. b-)

No disagreement from me there, allthough I do prefer a system that has booted to one that merely pretends to have booted.